Peter Macdiarmid/Getty ImagesRay Harryhausen, you'll be sorely missed.
The Hollywood visual effects pioneer, famed for his stop-motion animation techniques that brought to life fantastical creatures like a hibernating dinosaur in 1953's The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and terrifying skeletal warriors in 1963's Jason and the Argonauts, died Tuesday in London. He was 92.
Harryhausen's family announced his death on his Facebook page.
The Tinseltown innovator influenced generations of filmmakers chief among them Peter Jackson, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, and Nick Park thanks to his trailblazing model work.
Inspired as a child by Willis O'Brien's creations in 1933's King Kong, Harryhausen set about learning the effects trade and developed a method for combining stop-motion with live action footage. The result was a five-decade career that gave the big screen some of its most extraordinary and magical animation in films such as 1949's Mighty Joe Young, 1955's It Came From Beneath the Sea, 1958's The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, 1966's One Million Years B.C., and his swan song, 1981's Clash of the Titans.
In the wake of Harryhausen's passings, flowers were placed on his Walk of Fame star today in Hollywood. A slew of stars and filmmakers also took to Twitter to pay their respects to the effects wizard.
Here's a quick roundup:
Patton Oswalt: "If I believed in God, I'd want him to be like Ray Harryhausen -- nudging us one frame at a time toward the sublime & fantastic"
Simon Pegg: "Ray Harryhausen an inspiration and a legend, even before he left us. His influence cannot be measured and has shaped cinema as we know it."
Joe Dante: "Ray Harryhausen took a part of all our childhoods with him when he went."
Jon Favreau: "RIP Ray Harryhausen. He was a source of inspiration, the master of stop motion, and even a voice actor in Elf. His work still holds up."
Michael Giacchino: "Rest in Peace Ray Harryhausen. You instilled life and personality into everything you created. You are my hero."
Harry Knowles: "I don't want to wake up to news like this. I was blessed to know Ray Harryhausen beyond the films. I've never known a better soul. Magic"